Big Idea:
Informational text features such as titles, headings, photographs, maps, charts, time lines, and captions prepare students's mind for learning main ideas and supporting details.

Before I teach analyzing text structure, I will review with my students informational text features. The CCS 1, 2, 3 focus on key ideas and details and standards 4,5,6 focus on craft and structure. Review of text features will support comprehension of new ideas. Students will gain a better understanding of how to navigate a two page spread. My goal for students is to learn how to access information by using the varied supports that most informational texts contain. I want students to be able to define bold type words, use illustrations and diagrams to understand the concepts discussed, use insets and maps for example to gain additional information on the topic. To meet informational text CCSS outcomes my students will need to understand key ideas and details using the supports on the page. Next, I want my students to be able to think beyond the literal and understand more complicated issues and inferential ideas. Students will need to be able to synthesize information across pages or across texts, and identify an author's message. These are complicated skills. An understanding of text features will allow all students in my classroom access to ideas and concepts to continue to grow their knowledge of the world.

Most students will be familiar with the basic features of a nonfiction text, so I will be building on a student sense of success and excitement. I will begin with having students preview their texts by identifying obvious text features. This will till the soil for them to go deeper and notice how the author is using structure to convey their message. Text structure is a much more abstract concept and the students will have to notice certain ways to tip them off to the structure the author has employed.

Informational Texts traditionally use typical features such as photographs with captions, drawings and illustrations, diagrams, insets, timelines, charts and maps, headings, bolded words, and the like. Today students will identify them on the carpet during the mini-lesson and then share with their partners.

Resources (1)

Resources

I'm glad to see that you have brought your book baggies, reading response notebook, post-its and pencils to the rug. Today you will learn that informational texts teach the reader by having reading supports as a part of the book. An example of a text feature is photographs. The purpose of a photograph is to show you exactly what something looks like. You'll notice another text feature that always accompanies a photo and that is a caption. A caption is a phrase or a couple of sentences that explains what is in the photograph. Last year I had a lot of students who like to look at the photographs when they read informational texts which is good- but when you remember to read the captions that explain the photograph that is even better! Look at this anchor chart I created to help you see what most informational texts include to support you as you read the book. Take a minute and study this chart. Now turn to your partner and tell them three features you notice and what you think the purpose is for each.

Listen in. Call on several partnerships to name the feature and describe its purpose.

Now it is your turn. Pull out one of your books and preview it looking for text features and their purposes. Now turn and talk about the features you see and describe their purposes.

Call on a few partnerships to share what they noticed. I might have students put their book under the doc camera to increase engagement. When we preview a book its like revving up our mind to read. It activates our background knowledge and our curiosity.

Students in a few minutes you will be going to your desks. You will be working hard to read longer and stronger. Try to read in a way to learn new information from your books. One way to do this is to use the text features as a support for your comprehension. Another way to learn from your book is to use your post-it notes and reading response notebook to capture main ideas. Before I send you off I want you to be successful. So lets take a minute to choose the book you want to read today and set up page one of your notebook. Remember first write the title of the book and the date at the top of the page. Then put two or three post-its on the left side of the page. Remember to leave room for your thoughts about your post-its that you'll add later. Once you have this done you may go back to your desk and start reading.

Resources

I will keep three to four students at the rug to check on their book baggies and to see how they set up their reading response notebooks. The students I choose will be the students I know have trouble choosing texts at the right level. Hopefully, they have some books in their bag that they are able to read accurately and fluently. If not, I will bring a few bins up to them and ask them to see if they can find a topic they are experts in and a book that is written at a level where they can read and understand most of the words. I will send students off to read as I check in with them. for correct level of books and having their notebook set up with title and two post-it notes of the left side of the page.

After about twenty minutes have passed I will do a mid-work interruption and say,

Students remember to write two or three post-its about the kinds of text features you are using to understand the message of the text section. In a bit you will be sharing your post-its with the people at your table.

After I finish meeting with the 3-4 students on the rug, I will spend the rest of my time during independent reading leading table conferences. During a table conference I quietly stop the students and share something I notice that one or more of the students have done as far as post-iting a text feature. I will encourage all students to write several text features and their purpose on their post-its.

Resources

Alright students, you have about 2 minutes to prepare for your turn and talk partner share.

Be ready to share what you wrote on your post-its with your partner. Remember to share what text features helped you understand the author's message and how it helped you.

Have partners share.

End with allowing enough time for students to fill out their reading logs. Remind them for homework they can read in their informational books and they should continue reading in their just right novels so they keep their reading volume.